communities are grrrreat!

Lave and Wagner make an interesting point about learning practices and how they are deeply integrated with the social world and practices surrounding them. They argue that the social context provides for legitimate peripheral participation, as group members learn from each other and exhibit to newcomers and others what is able to be learned. They talk about the idea of apprenticeship as an older traditional way of learning that is presently often overlooked int today’s society; although it provides a useful forum in which individuals can learn a skilled trade, it presented other problems such as separating the individual from the rest of the community and exploitation of the apprentice. It remains, however, that the greater purpose of the apprentice has to do with the role he will eventually play in the community, giving his position meaning. They argue that communities provide an excellent place for peripheral learning, as members can learn from each other and become integrated into a community in which they can then be accepted and continue to learn.

I think that Lave and Wagner’s ideas apply to literacy instruction in many ways. The first thing that comes to mind in relation to the social context in which people learn are themes from Delpit’s “The Skin We Speak”. In her book, memories are recalled by adults who remember their own literacy practices being a barrier to their ability to learn, or learn at the appropriate level, because their literacy instruction ignored the social context from which they came as a whole. Lave and Wagner argue that the ability of people to see things as a whole, and have available to them the knowledge of what knowledge could be obtained, is an important part in successful learning. Participation is also important, as through participation individuals can learn and be absorbed into a culture of practice. Literacy instruction and the idea of communities go hand in hand, as it is important to recognize the different literacies that exist within a community in order to have effective learning take place. I keep wanting to make the tie that Lave and Wagner are speaking about how learning it so intertwined with the social context and community that it is impossible to think you can ignore the different literacies that exist there, both in the classroom and out. Media and technology literacy is one thing, dialects another, and social language yet another. For these literacies that are practiced mostly outside the classroom, and provide the largest basis of communication in a community (notice the similarities between the two words), cannot be ignored and help to provide a place for peripheral learning to take place.

In terms of the idea of a community of practice, they talk about a learning curriculum and a teaching curriculum within such a community. The learning curriculum is for the learning of a new practice and is an everyday practice through which they can learn through observation, but it must be viewed from the perspective of learners. It is also characteristic of a community. In contrast, a teaching curriculum is for the benefit of the newcomers, and often evolves out of participation. Both exist with the goal of shared concern and understanding by the participants about what they are doing and what it means in their lives and communities. They are both necessary parts to a robust community that fosters learning, and it is important for the people filling both roles to be aware they are doing so, as well as accept the roles themselves.

Another aspect of communities of practice is anecdotal story telling. They point out that the telling of stories can influence people’s decisions and they can be a forum for learning. Learning goes so far beyond the classroom and encompasses so much more than the school curriculum assesses or includes that it seems rather ignorant to try and deny that the majority of learning in most people’s lives does not happen in the classroom. Lave and Wagner believe in the importance of the community, and collaboration as an obvious part of that community.

What am I wondering?

I am left wondering about the role of the apprentice in the classroom. What role does the teacher play? The master? The master scholar? I am also left wondering about the people who do not want to become part of a community, and if their ability to learn successfully will be completely stunted by their disassociation. It also leaves me thinking about the importance of the role a community will play where ever I eventually decide to teach.

Educational know-how?

I spent this past weekend (and yes, posting because of it) mingling and socializing with an entire rainbow of people. There were Texans, New Yorkers, Brits, hicks, lawyers, doctors, tv reporters, children, and later on fairies, ghouls, Frankenstein, and his bride. The shared connection between the walks of life boiling down to one of two __ around which the day revolves, in good reason. All there to celebrate together, co-mingled minds from different landscapes and air temperatures, common ground found to stand on upon fake grass beneath our feet. Most of the day was spent skipping between walks of life of the elite as food from the sea fueled the many happy faces under the white plastic sky that shielded us from the poor bout of weather that graces us. I mention the scene, none other than upon a hill and drenched by nightfall, because as I spoke with and opened up to the room, the different philosophies on learning and living were remarkable. Here is a room filled with an entire Montessori school full of children, millionaires who never finished high school, well-educated fathers known to stop at every passing historical marker on the side of the road, and improv actors. It was an interesting mix of people, and I took the opportunity to try and compare differing views of people and test the waters of recognition of topics we've been discussing in class. One thing I wanted to know was if people, mostly my age and younger, had ever heard of Second Life. I was surprised to learn that only one other person had ever heard of it, as I was getting the impression it was a growing forum for youngsters on the internet. My cousin, Eve, who goes to Princeton, was actually the only one who had ever heard of it, as Princeton had a large chunk of change to build an entire University island in Second Life. Nonetheless, it does not seem like it will be getting used anytime in the near future, as the technology is too poor right now to make it accessible to most.
Another thing I was thinking about as I was talking to the myriads of people at the wedding was how we were all literate in small literacy surrounding the kind of work the company does (my aunt and her now husband own a company for which just about every family member has worked at some point). It's interesting because it's such an obscure little sect of business that deals with mold remiadiation and biological contaminant removal. They fumigated the Capitol building when there was the anthrax contamination, as well as the Media building down in Florida, where the original Elvis death picture was housed, and that received the first anthrax letter (I actually got to work on that one!). For us, the jargon of the business, words such as chlorine dioxide, emitters, wet lab, titration, scrubbing, gooseneck trailer, scotland anthrax, and 16-hour-shifts are commonplace, and they all bring specific images to our minds which we all share. It is always interesting to be around someone who is not familiar with the business and watch them be completely confused as to what's going on around them when they socialize with the company/family. I think taking a class in literacy has caused me to think sometimes about the literacies in which we're partaking personally, and come to realize how they are so learned by experience and circumstance. I may be rambling a bit now, but it becomes very apparent to me when I hang out with this side of my family how much the traditional view of literacy comes out in the members of the family. There is a large focus with the children who are still in high school to preserve the old ways, as they have no televisions and everyone in the family is avid readers, many of them devoid of cell phones. It's pretty refreshing to be around them, but if I weren't well-educated, well-read, and had a lot of different experiences under my belt, I fear the experience would not be the same.

Second Life - Are you for real?

This past week I was introduced to a virtual world I never before knew existed, and it kind of freaked me out. I know there is some intended educational value in it, but I wasn't a huge fan of the entire thing. I felt like it was just another forum for people who have a lot of time to spend sitting on virtual benches to do just that. As Second Life exists right now, it seems to me to be a difficult forum to access and put to use as an educational tool. I can understand using it as a tool to try and engage students on another level, and I can see how it might work for homework assignments and possible scavenger hunts, or utilizing things that others have created (such as the genome project) to try and expose students to educational material, but I think it is difficult to try and use Second Life in the stage it is in now as individual teachers. It seems that to create a forum on Second Life would take a lot more work than using more traditional forums. Honestly, Second Life kind of freaks me out. I am old-fashioned and don't really enjoy the online computer forum in which all of our work takes place nowadays. It was interesting how during the presentation from the Computer Services guy, we talked about how the idea of using a virtual world and the computer to ignite interest in your students, and I find it interesting how it has the complete opposite effect on me. The idea of having to post a blog or create a wiki to me takes away from my interest in the subject, because I don't like to have to use a computer to learn. I think it is interesting the turn our education system is taking in terms of technology. And, at the same time that I find it absolutely excruciating to have to blog and wiki, I appreciate the value of knowing that these forums exist because they are going to be important in being able to relate to my future students. Another thing I thought was interesting was the idea of commercialism and corporations paving the way for the educational market. By this I am referring to how corporations and organizations with a large money basis create these forums which can, when developed, be utilized by people for educational purposes. Educational organizations are consistently underfunded, so it becomes necessary for monetary resources to come from other places. This can in a way be related back to neoliberalism in that a big problem in education is the funding, and where it will come from, how it will be spent, and who decides all of this. Will it come from taxes? Will it eventually come from corporations if education is privatized? Who will be the governing body of education in the years to come? These are all questions that are raised in my head. But for now, I will resist the technology movement in my schooling and do what I can to preserve the old literacies of education in which I put so much value.

Neoliberalism and Education

Neoliberalism is referring the to the spectrum of involvement of the government and private entities, and it certainly has a strong, and relatively important, relationship with education. Government has a huge say, as it is at present, in a huge part of education in this country. Although we may not be completely aware of it on a daily basis, even here we sit at a public state-funded university, and most of us attended public secondary schools. The government controls many aspects of education, because they provide the funding for said entities. Public schools have to abide by rules and regulations set forth by the government. There is also a standardization of schools and ways to evaluate said schools and their success. The taxes we pay as inhabitants of this country help to provide the schools with teachers and buildings in which to learn. However, what we've seen lately is the emergence of a a growing number of alternate schools, those that are not publicly run but privately run. This is seen largely in cities, often with the addition of charter schools. These schools are privately run schools in a public system, and fall much closer on the neoliberalism spectrum to the left (towards private), but many still follow the curriculums set forth by governmental institutions that set standards.
It is hard to separate the involvement of government from the working of schools; they are tightly entwined. Schools are one of the things which government provides for us. However, depending on who is running the government and making the decisions, the things that are mandated can be very dangerous and detrimental to the quality of schools and students they produce. When govt controls the end all say all of schooling, it means that govt will want to use the schools for means that might promote the government, and not necessarily have the best interest of the schools and students in mind. Some people may argue that what's good for the government is good for the people, but c'mon, we all know that's not true, at least not anymore. Our government does not represent the majority of the people in this country, and is often self-serving to the tune of those in office and high ranks. There has been a decrease in funding and education of the arts as our government tries to groom its children to keep up with the rest of the world as they advance is science and mathematics. The government does not put enough value in education, in my opinion. Although, it is also our society as a whole who does not put enough value in it, as we move farther and farther from the natural state of things and our attention spans wane, too often people look to entertainment rather than enrichment. Dumb people are easier to control.
On the other hand, government is good for education for the same reason its involvement may be detrimental to it. Government puts mandates on education, such as requiring children to attned schools until a certain age, and this places at least some value on education. Of course, when the child reaches 16 and can choose for herself whether or not she wants to continue attending the underfunded school, she can, and she's old enough not to be a burden on working parents. Government also put mandates on equal opportunity for all to go to school, including the disabled, which is great. But, on the subject of government mandates, we have things like NCLB which shows no vested interest in education at all and provided no positive advancement in the schooling of our nation. Yet, its mandated, and will probably lead to huge change in educational practices in this country when the schools are evaluated.
In writing this freewrite, I am beginning to realize that I don't actually know completely how the system works within the government to regulate schools and education. However, I do know that I think there should be a group formed, funded by the government but separate from it, that had the true interests of education in mind as they were amending policies and setting goals and mandates. Like the EPA for the Environment. The EPA for Education!! The Education Protection Association. Of course, we see when douchebags like current dictator in power pull funding from organizations because they go against said moran's personal investments. And this is why government's hand in education needs to remain, but needs to better regulated by powers that actually have education as EDUCATION in mind, not personal political goals or personal advancement. Also, it becomes hard for politicians to focus on issues like education when there are severe pressing issues at hand, such as economic crisis, disasters, and war, but this does not mean that education drops on the totem pole of importance. How can we possibly advance a nation without advancing the people of it first?